“We want all permanent residents, if possible, to become Canadians,” said Canada’s Immigration Minister, Ahmed Hussen, at a recent conference in Toronto, and now the process will become quicker and simpler for immigrants to the country. Bill C-6 — which, among other changes, will decrease the amount of time new immigrants have to wait before becoming eligible to obtain Canadian citizenship — is scheduled to receive Royal Assent this evening (June 19), the final step before the bill may become law.

The Government of Canada has removed the condition that applied to some sponsored spouses or partners of Canadian citizens and permanent residents to live with their sponsor in order to keep their permanent resident status.

Immigration Minister John McCallum says he’s planning on introducing changes in the “next couple of months” that will grant permanent resident status to the sponsored spouses of Canadians, immediately, upon arriving in Canada.

“When spouses come in now, they don’t immediately become permanent residents; there’s a two-year period where they are not yet permanent residents,” Mr. McCallum (Markham-Thornhill, Ont.) said in an interview with The Hill Times. “We said in our platform that we will end that so that they will become permanent residents on arrival.”

President Obama’s plan to shield millions of illegal immigrants from deportation may be in legal limbo, but that’s not stopping advocates for the undocumented, who are planning a new wave of events celebrating the initiative’s one-year anniversary.

A federal appellate court has delayed once again the Obama administration's controversial plans to grant some undocumented immigrants a reprieve from deportation. There is now a chance that the Supreme Court will consider the dispute sometime next year. In the meantime, some 4 million people living here illegally who had hoped for at least a temporary guarantee that they would be allowed to stay are still waiting.

President Obama will ask the Supreme Court to clear the way for his far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s immigration system, administration lawyers said Tuesday, setting up a battle in the nation’s highest court over whether nearly five million undocumented immigrants can legally live and work in the United States.